IyhelM
Member
Quick report of this brevet that took place last Saturday in France, close to Paris.
It was organised by none others than the Audax Club Parisien, in charge of the famous PBP and numerous other long distance events.
This was only my second 200km (the first one was in 2021 with an overloaded Azub TRIcon) but I have planned several ones over the coming weeks as part of my training for the Dragon Ride in June. I chose it as it was not too far from home, weather promises looked okayish and elevation was decent but reasonable (6500 ft… it will be double for the Dragon Ride
). The idea was to assess my fitness level - spoiler: not there yet
So I spend the night at a friend’s in Paris and took an early suburb train to Marne-la-Vallée (where Disneyland sits) and arrived there, with 300 other riders, around 7am. There was a very long queue to get our ride book and a coffee before going, eventually I left at 7:50. The weather was cold due to sustained wind but otherwise nice. Apart from the first and last 20 km, the roads were rolling along gentle hills, on the fringes of the Champagne vineyard (hence the name), with limited traffic. The only drawback on the day was that we basically rode headwind for 2/3 of the day - I would not have enjoyed riding a DF!
I started alone, as usual in this kind of event you make plenty of friends along the way but being one of the 2 only recumbents, it is obviously not easy to stay in the same DF group. Luckily after 115 km I caught up with another Cruz rider and we rode together for next 70k. The path went through a number of small towns and villages so we had plenty of occasions to resupply.
After the second checkpoint, at K158, it started drizzling, more and more as time passed, the roads also became bumpy, we got back to ugly suburbs so not the best way to finish the day but it was good to get up the bike. No showers to my dismay but hummus sandwiches and good beer made up for it.
I spent 9h40 on my seat and finished in a total 11h10 which is both a huge improvement over my ’21 brevet (not such a feat… my trike was probably weighting 30kg at the time! I completed that brevet in 12h50, with only 40 min margin before cut time!) and a slight disappointment considering my current setup and my supposed form… but with so much wind it’s not so bad.
Then, back to the train, delays due to bad weather brought me home only after 11pm and 15 last km under heavy rain but happy of my ride.
Back to training now!
Here is a quick (bad) video of the ride:
It was organised by none others than the Audax Club Parisien, in charge of the famous PBP and numerous other long distance events.
This was only my second 200km (the first one was in 2021 with an overloaded Azub TRIcon) but I have planned several ones over the coming weeks as part of my training for the Dragon Ride in June. I chose it as it was not too far from home, weather promises looked okayish and elevation was decent but reasonable (6500 ft… it will be double for the Dragon Ride
). The idea was to assess my fitness level - spoiler: not there yet So I spend the night at a friend’s in Paris and took an early suburb train to Marne-la-Vallée (where Disneyland sits) and arrived there, with 300 other riders, around 7am. There was a very long queue to get our ride book and a coffee before going, eventually I left at 7:50. The weather was cold due to sustained wind but otherwise nice. Apart from the first and last 20 km, the roads were rolling along gentle hills, on the fringes of the Champagne vineyard (hence the name), with limited traffic. The only drawback on the day was that we basically rode headwind for 2/3 of the day - I would not have enjoyed riding a DF!
I started alone, as usual in this kind of event you make plenty of friends along the way but being one of the 2 only recumbents, it is obviously not easy to stay in the same DF group. Luckily after 115 km I caught up with another Cruz rider and we rode together for next 70k. The path went through a number of small towns and villages so we had plenty of occasions to resupply.
After the second checkpoint, at K158, it started drizzling, more and more as time passed, the roads also became bumpy, we got back to ugly suburbs so not the best way to finish the day but it was good to get up the bike. No showers to my dismay but hummus sandwiches and good beer made up for it.
I spent 9h40 on my seat and finished in a total 11h10 which is both a huge improvement over my ’21 brevet (not such a feat… my trike was probably weighting 30kg at the time! I completed that brevet in 12h50, with only 40 min margin before cut time!) and a slight disappointment considering my current setup and my supposed form… but with so much wind it’s not so bad.
Then, back to the train, delays due to bad weather brought me home only after 11pm and 15 last km under heavy rain but happy of my ride.
Back to training now!
Here is a quick (bad) video of the ride:
